She was starting to cry now. Bhrodi took a knee beside her chair and put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. “Chris has asked that I come to Lioncross Abbey,” he said softly. “He feels that it is important enough to discuss it face to face, and I agree. We must discover the truth about Blayth the Strong, one way or the other, because the man is feeding a rising rebellion against the English.”
Penelope looked at him, tears spilling down her cheeks. “But what if it really is James?”
He kissed her on the forehead. “I swear to you that I will find out,” he said. “But until I do, you must not tell your father. There is no sense in worrying the man if there is nothing to worry over. At least, not yet.”
Penelope wasn’t really listening to him because she was lost in a maelstrom of her own fear and speculation. “If it is my brother, why has he not come home?” she wept. “Why did he stay in Wales? Does he think we do not love him? Bhrodi – what if he thinks we do not love him because Papa left him behind?”
It was such a tragic thought, one that upset her deeply, and Bhrodi put his arms around her. He felt so very badly for her sorrow.
“There is no use in fretting until we can confirm the truth,” he said again. “Once we know if it is your brother or not, then you can ask your questions.”
She wiped at her wet face. She knew he was right, but she was so very upset by the entire circumstance. “When are you leaving?”
“Right away.”
“I am going with you.”
Bhrodi knew she might say something like that. “Nay, caria,” he said firmly. “You must stay with the boys.”
But Penelope would not be discouraged. From tears one moment to demands the next, she would not let him discourage her. “I must go,” she insisted. “The children will be fine with their nurses. I must do this, Bhrodi. I must see for myself if it is James.”
“Do you not trust me to discover the truth?”
“Of course I do,” she said. “But you do not know my brother on sight. I would recognize him in an instant.”
Bhrodi sighed heavily, mostly because she was right. She would know her brother on sight, and he had a feeling she wouldn’t rest until she did. This was the chance he’d taken by telling her the contents of the missives, and now he was facing that which he feared – she was demanding to come with him. He didn’t want her to, but he knew he couldn’t keep her away. If he denied her, she would only follow him.
Eyeing her, he stood up.
“You are not going to give me a choice, are you?” he asked.
Penelope could see that he was displeased. Standing up, she went to him, putting her hands on his arm. It was, perhaps, the most important thing that had ever happened to the de Wolfe family, and he had to know just how serious she was about this.
The loss of James was an event in her family’s history that had shaped all of them and changed them forever. They’d lost James, the gentle but fierce brother, and Penelope had such fond memories of him. He would ride her around on his war horse when she was younger and receive his mother’s wrath because of it. He was easily bent to her will, and would play with her or give her sweets, and then pretend to fight his brother, Patrick, for the title of Favored Brother. Penelope remembered very well that they would trade off “killing” one another for her favor. God, she had loved him. If there was even a chance James had survived Llandeilo, then she had to know.
They all had to know.
“I am giving you a choice,” she said after a moment, “but I am begging you to allow me to come. Bhrodi… I loved my brother very much. He was kind and generous and humorous, and I miss him every day. Please do not deny me the chance to see him again if, in fact, it is really him. You cannot know what this means to me.”
Bhrodi rolled his eyes in defeat. “As I said, I have no choice,” he said, but he wasn’t angry about it. Simply resigned. “You had better hurry and pack, then. We will travel light and swift, so keep that in mind. I plan to make it to Lioncross in just a few days, so the travel will be difficult.”
Penelope was very eager to go and relieved he wasn’t giving her grief about it. In truth, she knew he understood her need to know the truth.
“I will endure, I promise,” she said.
“You had better endure,” he said. “One complaint and I shall send you home.”
Penelope knew he wasn’t serious, but she also knew he wasn’t keen on her going. Throwing her arms around his neck, she kissed him swiftly and fled the solar before he could change his mind.
Bhrodi watched her go, thinking on the journey ahead and the wife he was now bringing along. After the shock and tears had faded, he could see the hope in her eyes, hope that the rumors were true and it really was her brother.
Still, Bhrodi was leery about it. Men had been wrong before and he would hate to see her so disappointed. But something told him that in any case, disappointment would be inevitable for one very good reason – a man who let his family believe he was dead was not a man who wanted to be found.
As Bhrodi prepared the escort party for the trip to Lioncross, Penelope was doing something he’d asked her not to do. He’d told her not to tell her father about any of this until they could confirm that James de Wolfe was, indeed, alive, but all Penelope could think of was how devastated her father had been when James had been killed. Penelope knew, as the entire family knew, that it was something her father had never recovered from.
Having two small sons of her own, Penelope could only imagine how she would feel if one of her sons had been killed. She also knew that if there was even a chance he had not been killed, and that he was still alive somewhere, she would desperately want to know. It simply wasn’t fair to keep her father in the dark in a matter of such importance, especially when it came to James.
Sweet James.
Therefore, against her husband’s wishes, Penelope wrote a missive to her father while Bhrodi was busy with preparations for their departure to Lioncross. She paid one of the stable grooms handsomely to take the missive north to Castle Questing, and the young man was more than happy to do it, slipping from Rhydilian’s postern gate, following the River Nodwydd until he came to a road that would take him towards the mainland. It was going to take him a week at the very least to reach Castle Questing, and Lady de Shera had insisted it was a matter of life or death.
When Penelope left with her husband and Rees de Lohr the next morning in the early dawn hours, it was with the knowledge that her father would soon know what she knew.
James had risen from the dead.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gwendraith Castle
She was short and pretty, with dark brown hair.
And she was pelting him with snowballs.
Visions of a castle he didn’t know, and those same people whose names he couldn’t remember, were in his dreams again. There was a pretty little girl with long hair crying about snow in her ear, and then there was a one-eyed man hugging him. He’d seen that man in his dreams many times, but he had no idea who he was. All he knew was that he loved him, but he’d stopped trying long ago to remember the man’s name.
He never could.
And then he was getting amorous with the girl with the dark brown hair. He could feel her soft skin in his hands, and he had feelings for her. He wasn’t sure if it was lust or love or something else, but that girl brought about arousal in him and the intense feeling of attraction. He’d dreamed about her before, too. And in his dreams, she was something special to him. In truth, she had been his only experience with a woman that he could recall, a dream lover who had captured his attention.
But the dreams with his dream lover in them turned into something else. This often happened, too – his dreams would be those of nameless people he loved and then it would shift to a battle. Or, sometimes it was just the battle and nothing more. He could hear men screaming and fighting over his head as he lay on the ground. Fighting and more fighting.
Atty!
Scott!
Names that meant nothing to him, but he felt like they should.
In his dream, he could taste fear but he couldn’t move. Someone was trying to pick him up off the ground, but he fell away. He was conscious, hearing everything, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. But he had the greatest sense of loneliness he’d ever known, and as his dream faded into mist, all he could feel was a profound sense of loss. It left him feeling hollow and shattered, with a pain in his heart that he couldn’t describe. All he knew was that he felt… lost.
And then he awoke.
His heart was pounding, and he was sitting up in bed. Blayth didn’t even remember sitting up, but he was. There was sweat on his brow and he wiped at his face, trying to settle down. God, he hated these dreams. He had them frequently. It seemed that when he went to sleep, he entered another world, all his own. He spent his days in the real world and the nights in a world of people he didn’t know and fearsome battles that left him breathless.
He really hated that dream world, because it left him feeling sad and worn.
Blayth knew he couldn’t go back to sleep again. That was the curse of his vivid dreams. If he did, he’d fall right back into the same dream and wake up in a panic again. Therefore, he endeavored to remain awake. It was probably only an hour or two before dawn, anyway. There was no reason to return to sleep and suffer through another battle and more panic, or try to remember people he didn’t know.
His chamber was just off the entry of Gwendraith’s keep. It had been a guard room when they first took over the castle, but he transformed it into his bed chamber. That way, he was the first to hear of anything from the outer ward and the first man out of the keep if need be.
Climbing out of bed, he lit the taper on the bedside table. Before pulling on his leather breeches and long tunic, he headed to the basin to splash some water on his face and hair. Hair wet, he raked it back over his lumpy skull, or at least the left side of it was lumpy from the damage. There was a small piece of broken mirror that had been left behind at Gwendraith and he picked it up, gazing at his reflection.
Sometimes, he would stare at himself and wonder just who he really was. Morys called him Blayth, and although he’d gone along with Morys’ explanation about his past, he wondered quite often if that was really true. Something told him that all of those people he didn’t recognize in his dreams and the woman with the dark brown hair were all part of his past and had nothing to do with being a captive and tortured by the English. Something told him that his past was filled with better things than that.
The keep was quiet at this hour. He was awake, but he didn’t want to go about his duties yet. It was rare when he had moments of quiet like this, to relax and ponder his thoughts. Against the wall, and piled with his possessions, was a variation on a citole, a stringed musical instrument that he’d been given. For some reason, Blayth’s ability to sing and play an instrument had never left him, and it was something he enjoyed doing from time to time. He could remember so many songs and sing them quite ably. Picking up the instrument, which he hadn’t played in a long while, he took it with him as he headed out to the hall.
Men were sleeping on the fringes of the great hall, along with packs of scruffy-looking dogs, but Blayth didn’t pay any attention to them. His chamber was rather cramped and close, and he didn’t feel like spending any amount of time there, so he’d come out to the hall where the fire was dying and men were snoring.
Sitting down at the old feasting table, he kicked back his legs and leaned against the tabletop as he began to pick at the strings of the citole. A haunting melody came to mind and he quietly began to sing.
Come roam with me, my love,
Come roam far with me,
Away from this hard world,
And love only me.
His voice was rousing a few of the men, who began stirring in their sleep. He plucked a few more chords before starting the second verse.
They said that you loved me,
They said that you cared.
They said that your strong heart,
Wasn’t mine to be shared.
More men stirred, coughing as they began to awaken to the sound of Blayth’s beautiful baritone singing voice. He didn’t care a lick that he had awakened them, so he continued to sit there and hum the song, thinking of the coming day. He had great hopes of seeing Asmara and, perhaps, even taking that trip into Carmarthen that had been put off after the arrival of her father.
Even though there had been no great argument between Morys and Cader the day before, it was clear that not all was well between them. Cader wanted information from Morys’ meeting with Howell, but Morys told him very little other than the coming planned meeting at Carmarthen Castle next month.
Frustrated, Cader finally left Gwendraith in the late afternoon, heading to Carmarthen Castle to ask Howell personally what had been discussed between him and Morys, a move that utterly angered Morys. He liked to feel special, as if he was the only one privy to such inside information, but Cader wasn’t going to let him get away with it. He was part of this rebellion, too, and risking his men just as Morys was risking his. Therefore, he’d stormed off before sunset for the short ride to Carmarthen.
But Asmara had remained.
Blayth’s thoughts turned to the elegant creature everyone called the Dragon Princess. To him, she was becoming so much more than that. Their kiss yesterday had been an event that had changed something within him. He couldn’t believe she wasn’t repulsed by his big, scarred body, or his slow and sometimes hesitant speech. She had called him handsome.
No one had ever called him that before.
She hadn’t objected to his kiss, either. In fact, she seemed to enjoy it. He knew that he certainly did. She was the first kiss he’d ever had outside of his dream lover, but nothing with his dream lover had ever been so satisfying.
He knew he had to kiss Asmara again.
Kiss her and more. He’d never been one to think of marriage, but when he looked at Asmara, he was starting to think of such things. He couldn’t imagine not spending his life with her by his side, that strong and beautiful woman. She had endeared herself deeply to his damaged, confused soul, so much so that he knew he never wanted to be without her.
Odd thoughts for the usually solitary man.
Sitting back against the tabletop, he continued to strum his citole and think of Asmara ferch Cader. The hall was stirring around him, with men starting to rise for the day thanks to Blayth’s music. There were even a few grumbles and dirty looks in his direction. But he didn’t care, lost in a world of Asmara, and wondering what she looked like under the baggy clothing she wore.
As he continued to strum and think on golden-eyed beauties, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye at the hall entry and looked over just in time to see Asmara passing by the entry, heading out of the keep.
He was on his feet in an instant.
Quickly, he made his way back to his chamber to drop off the citole before leaving the keep, following Asmara’s path. It was quite early for her to be awake, with the eastern horizon just starting to lighten. There was a heavy dew in the air and the grass was wet, and his breath hung in the air in puffs of mist as Blayth continued to follow the woman from the inner ward and into the outer ward beyond.
He could see that she was heading for the stable, no doubt to check on her horse with the wounded hoof. Blayth continued to follow her at a distance. He was thinking of their kiss, of the day that followed, including sup that night where they’d sat in relative silence because Morys was upset about Cader, and Asmara didn’t want to draw the man’s ire.
In fact, she’d only stayed long enough to eat her meal before fleeing the hall and retreating to the chamber she’d been sleeping in. Blayth didn’t go after her, though; once she was gone, Morys began talking and he didn’t shut up until late in the night. After that, it was too late to see to her.
Fortunately, she was up early this morning.
The oute
r ward sloped downward and it was slippery from the early morning dampness, and Blayth struggled not to slip on the slick mud as he followed Asmara to the stable. He was far enough back from her that she didn’t hear him, nor did she notice, as she seemed singularly focused on reaching the stable. Once she disappeared inside the darkened structure that smelled heavily of hay and animals, Blayth came to a halt just outside the door, peering inside to see where she had gone.
He was stalking her.
Inside the stable, he could hear animals stirring as daylight approached. He could also hear Asmara moving around. He remained just outside the stable entry, pressed against the wall, hearing her soft voice as she spoke to the horse. Peering around the corner again, he saw her come forth with her horse, bringing him into an open area of the stable where she could tend to his hoof. When she tied up the horse and headed back into a corner of the stable to collect a bucket, he made his move.
Blayth knew he had to be careful when he ambushed her because it was dark, and he would startle her, and he didn’t want to end up missing an eye. So, he moved swiftly and quietly, and came up behind her just as she was bending down to pick something up. He tapped her on the shoulder and when she gasped and turned around, he threw his arms around her and kissed her.
But it wasn’t just any kiss – it was heated and sexy, and the moment her scent filled his nostrils, it was as if a fire sparked deep inside him. Asmara’s moment of surprise was quickly replaced by a response that saw her arms wind around his neck as she returned his feverish kiss. He even heard her giggle, low in her throat, and it fed his lust. Picking her off the ground, he carried her over into the last stall, which was quite dark at this hour, and pulled her down into the corner.
As he kissed her deeply, his hands started to wander. The tunic she wore was heavy against the cold morning, but he didn’t try to go through it. He simply went under it, snaking his hands beneath it until he came to her warm, naked belly. She flinched when he touched her skin. But instead of pulling from him in fear, she simply let him do as he wished, as his instincts dictated. She didn’t resist.
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